


The Modern Prometheus

by paperscribe



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: A major character was dead but he's much better now, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Mad Science, Major Character Undeath, Thunder and Lightning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-31
Updated: 2014-10-31
Packaged: 2018-02-21 12:05:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2467691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperscribe/pseuds/paperscribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lewis wakes in an unusual situation.  My deepest thanks (and apologies) to Mary Shelley.  Written for the Lewis Challenge Frightfest 2014.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Modern Prometheus

Fire lances through his body, and it's agony.

He draws a breath and realises he can't remember the last one he took. What…what happened to him? Surely he was here a moment ago, before the flash of pain, but he finds he can't remember anything. Is it…is it one of those things…is it one of those electric things that starts your heart beating in rhythm again when you've had a heart attack? He doesn't remember having a heart attack. He doesn't remember anything before this moment.

No. Not true. He remembers that his name is Robbie Lewis.

There's a flash, bright, like the one that brought the fire, and he draws a quick breath, but there is no resulting pain. He can't seem to open his eyes. It's dark, aside from the flashes, and that's when he realises he can hear. He can hear…wind? Rain?

Did he just get struck by _lightning?_

He tries to move, to get up so he can get out of the rain, but moving is a dicey proposition at best. He finds that anything he asks his body to do only occurs after the fact. He tries to wiggle his fingers and it takes a minute for the impulse to travel all the way there. But, of course…there are the effects of the lightning to consider. He knows he's lucky to be alive. Wiggling his fingers will come later.

He tries to lift his arm and realises he can't. Restrained. Something is…holding him. He tries to move a leg, but the same thing happens. The same thing happens with the other arm and other leg, and then Lewis realizes what this means. He's _strapped_ to something. He's strapped to something outside in the middle of a thunderstorm, and he tells his body to call for help, but by the time he gets his mouth open and his voice working, there's a flash and a bang and he knows no one will ever hear him, not over that.

But Robbie Lewis isn't the sort of man to give up, even in a dire situation like this one, so he starts to shift his body weight back and forth, back and forth, and the thing he's strapped to must be suspended from somewhere, because it begins swaying back and forth, back and forth. Someone will have to notice this. Someone will see, if there's anyone there to see, and if not, maybe he can flip whatever he's strapped to so he won't have to feel that horrible fire in his chest again.

There's a creak, a sound of chains moving, and Lewis stops shifting from side to side as the thing he's strapped to begins to lower. Is he up in the air? Someone put him up in the air in a lightning storm? Who would do that? Or no, maybe he's come out of the ground and someone is lowering him back down underground where he'll be safe. His memory is faulty; he can't remember what happened just before he was here. If he remembered, maybe he could work out for himself what this is, but he can't even open his eyes.

He can no longer feel the rain on his skin, which means he's inside somewhere, and he lets himself relax. He keeps wiggling his fingers, and each time, they're more and more responsive, so he knows that he'll be all right. Once he gets his body to catch up with his brain again, he'll be all right. Whatever happened is temporary.

The thing he's strapped to comes to a shuddering stop, and he feels something more solid under his back, some sort of furniture that's supporting his weight now instead of the chain doing it. Then he feels someone's fingers brush against his hand.

"You're breathing," whispers a voice he knows very well.

Lewis takes a deep breath, as if to demonstrate that he's still alive after the lightning, and wills his voice to work. The word is slow in coming, but that's all right; he already knows practice will speed things along. "Ath'way."

He hears a sharply indrawn breath, and then shaking hands clutch his hand as Hathaway whispers, "Sir."

Lewis finally manages to open his eyes, and Hathaway is standing above him, still holding his hand tightly. But that isn't what Lewis notices first. What he notices first is Hathaway's hair, because it has somehow turned a stark, shocking white, all of it.

He's about to ask about that, ask what could possibly have turned Hathaway's hair that colour, when his gaze shifts to his own arm, and he forgets to breathe a moment. His arm is crossed by a jagged, nasty scar sewn together crudely with surgical thread. He shifts his gaze to his other arm, and it's even worse, the scars criss-crossing in desperate lines of taut stitches. The rest of his body seems to be covered in some sort of sheet, but Lewis somehow knows that the scars and the stitches run all across his body. What he doesn't know is why. 

"But…" Lewis takes a moment to collect himself, because he can feel the stitching going through his upper lip. It doesn't hurt, but he can feel the coarse thread against his lower lip when his lips brush together. What must he look like? He's not sure he wants to know.

Hathaway sees his panic, and murmurs soothingly, "It's all right. It's all right."

"What happened?" Lewis asks. Lightning…stitches…being strapped down in midair at the height of a storm…what is this?

Hathaway is cradling Lewis's hand to his chest, and at the question, bends his head down to kiss Lewis's hand before answering, "I brought you back."

***

"Back?" Lewis asks, his voice rusty and hoarse. Back from where? It can't be back from where he's thinking, because that's not possible…but those scars on his body, those stitches…it can't be anything less than that. And he still can't remember. "Am I…? Was I…?"

"I'm sorry about the stitches," Hathaway says, his tone no-nonsense, "but I had to make sure you would hold together when I stole you from the morgue."

Lewis has never pictured the words "when I stole you from the morgue" applying to him. "I…died?"

Hathaway looks at him sharply. "You don't remember?"

Lewis manages a clumsy shake of his head. "No."

Hathaway sets down Lewis's hand on the gurney he is lying on. "It was my fault."

Lewis snorts. "I don't believe that."

"We got caught in a traffic accident. I tried…" Hathaway seems caught in a memory for a moment, and then he dispels it with a shake of his head. "I'm sorry."

"It's all right. I don't remember a bit of it." He pauses. "You stole me from a morgue?"

"They had you locked in a drawer. I couldn't stand the thought of you in there." Hathaway takes a deep breath. "What happened to you was my fault and I had to fix it."

"You did," Lewis says softly. He can't imagine how long or how hard Hathaway must have had to work to accomplish something like this.

"Did I?" Hathaway asks. "This is happening, isn't it? I'm not imagining or…hallucinating."

Lewis shook his head again. "I'm awake." He pauses. "I must be a sight."

Hathaway gives him an assessing look, then shrugs. "You look fine to me."

"Don't be daft," Lewis retorts.

"I…" Hathaway pauses, thinks, and then answers. "I've spent so much time with you this way…I don't really remember what you used to look like."

"Jesus." Lewis doesn't mean to say that; it sort of slips out.

"I'm sure I've changed too," Hathaway says, "if it comes to that."

"You have," Lewis agrees.

Hathaway flinches.

"It's not bad," Lewis hastens to reassure him. "Your hair, though…"

"It's gone white. I know," Hathaway says. "It looks like I feel. A hundred years older."

"I'm sorry," Lewis murmurs. He never imagined Hathaway taking his death so hard.

"No," Hathaway says, clutching his hand again. "Don't ever be sorry. You're back now. Everything's all right."

Lewis has a sudden flash of memory--darkness, and Hathaway talking to him urgently. _Please, please stay, you have to stay…_ But it had been so hard to breathe…

Hathaway's fingernails dig into his hand, and Lewis is back in the present again. 

"All right?" Hathaway asks, and he must've spent a lot of time alone lately, because he's barely hiding the panic in his voice.

"I remember you being there," Lewis says. "Talking to me. You know."

"I thought listening to me would give you something to hold on to. Then when the medics came…they told me you were past help. I didn't believe them."

"When did you stop?" Lewis asks gently.

Hathaway shakes his head. "I didn't. I kept talking. Outside, in the morgue, here, it made no difference. You may have just begun answering back, but I've been talking the whole time."

Lewis finds that at once touching and sad. "Thanks. For not giving up."

"You wouldn't have given up on me," Hathaway says.

"No, but…" Lewis glances round what he can see now is a laboratory. "…this does go a bit beyond my capabilities."

Hathaway smiles slightly, and Lewis can't imagine never seeing that smile again. "You didn't read mad science, sir?"

"Not all of us went to university," Lewis answers with what he hopes is a grin.

"It wasn't difficult once I'd worked out the principle of the thing," Hathaway says. "The most difficult part was keeping you cool enough so you didn't begin to decay…" He suddenly realizes how he sounds and trails off. "Would you rather I didn't talk about this?"

"You think being dead made me squeamish?" Lewis retorts.

"Well…I can only imagine it's…different when it's you," Hathaway says.

Lewis shrugs. "I'm not dead now. And by the way, d'you mind unstrapping me?"

"Oh!" Hathaway blushes. "Right, sorry." He unbuckles the straps holding Lewis to the gurney. "I didn't know what state you'd be in if this revived you. When this revived you." He pauses after unbuckling the last strap. "How do you feel?"

Lewis considers the question. "Fine. Nothing hurts. Though that lightning was a bit excessive."

"It was necessary," Hathaway says. "But…I'm sorry it hurt."

Lewis pushes himself cautiously into a seated position. His balance seems a bit off, as though his body is still calibrating itself to his brain. Probably it is. Who knows how long it's been since his brain has done anything? He lists to one side but Hathaway is there to stop him falling.

"I feel a bit ridiculous," Lewis tells him.

"You're not ridiculous. You were in a very bad accident. You'd need recovery time even if you hadn't been killed," Hathaway says.

Lewis wonders how his death has become so matter of fact, but it seems to have done. "I suppose." He pauses. "So…what are you going to do?"

Hathaway frowns at him. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, are you going back to work now that I'm all right?" 

"I've resigned," Hathaway says. 

"You what?"

"Police work was too much of a distraction from my work here. So it had to go," Hathaway says.

"But you can go back now."

Hathaway shakes his head. "I'd rather be here."

"In case my arm falls off?"

"It won't fall off. My stitches are inelegant but I used very strong thread." Only the slight twitch of his lips shows that Hathaway is joking.

"Then what will I do?" Lewis asks. "I can't go back to work. I don't imagine I can go anywhere looking like this."

"You could be a consulting detective," Hathaway says. "Like Sherlock Holmes."

Lewis snorts. "If Sherlock Holmes was a zombie."

"Don't say that. You're not a zombie." Hathaway's voice is sharp, but then it softens. "We'll work it out. Can we just…enjoy this a while before we make any plans?"

Lewis nods. "Course we can." He reaches out for Hathaway's hand, fingers still slightly clumsy but working better all the time. Hathaway takes Lewis's hand, holding it so gently, as though it is a gift to him. 

Lewis thinks Hathaway is the gift.


End file.
